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Season 5, Episode 112: Ping Pong
Original Air Date: 1/18/77
Written by: Sid Dorfman
Directed by: William Jurgensen
The 4077th is watching with bated breath an inter-camp ping pong tournament, and their best player, Cho Lin (Richard Narita) is facing off against the player from the 8055th.
Cho ends up winning, and of course everyone is thrilled--except for Frank, who bet against his own unit. "I got 3 to 1 odds", he protests.
After surgery, Cho brings his fiancee, Soony (Sachiko Lee) by the Swamp, where he announces they're going to be married. Hawkeye and B.J. offer to hold the ceremony at the 4077th, and even pony up money so Cho can afford a wedding ring. Frank scoffs at Hawkeye and B.J.'s naivete, insisting its foolish to trust an "Oriental."
Cho left for Seoul to get the ring, and Soony becomes worried--and then inconsolable--when Cho doesn't come back on time. Soony begins to cry, saying she doesn't think Cho is coming back. Hawkeye tries to reassure her, and Frank thinks all of it is very funny.
Later on, wounded arrive, and one of those hurt is Cho! Turns out that when he was in Seoul, a South Korean Army truck came by, grabbed Cho, put a uniform on him, and sent him into battle.
After tending to his rather minor wounds, Frank demands to know why Hawkeye and B.J. haven't shipped Cho out. They try and bluff their way out of it, but Frank is adamant, even drawing up a formal list of charges against them for various infractions.
Col. Potter asks Hawkeye and B.J. why Cho hasn't been shipped out, and they tell him about the upcoming wedding. At first that doesn't mollify Potter, but he changes his mind when Hawkeye says Potter will be giving away the bride! Potter, beaming with pride, agrees to let the ceremony commence.
The wedding--a Buddhist ceremony where no words are spoken--is performed, with everyone watching and bursting into applause when its over. Frank wanders over to the wedding cake, taking a taste of it while no one's looking.
Later, Radar and Col. Potter play ping-pong, and Radar can barely contain his laughter as he beats Potter so easily.
Fun Facts: The subplot--involving an old friend of Col. Potter's whose incompetence on the battlefield gets some soldiers killed, and Potter has to step in--would be virtually repeated in an 11th season episode.
Frank is at his worst in this episode--he's racist, rude, and completely insensitive, even when Soony runs away crying. What a dick.
The divide between Frank and Hot Lips of course started when she got engaged, but there's a subtle, telling moment in a scene where Hot Lips has Radar wear Soony's wedding gown so she can hem it properly (Radar being the same size as the bride).
Radar tells her a story about a guy back home, Boris, who wore women's clothes, "and wasn't even in the Army like Klinger, if you know what I mean." Hot Lips, while working on the dress, says quietly, "To each his own"--an astoundingly open-minded view, and a very different answer than the Hot Lips of previous seasons would have given.
Favorite Line: Potter, discussing Frank's list of grievances: "We all know, when the Good Lord gave out Paranoia, Frank Burns got in line twice."
Hawkeye, holding up four fingers: "Three times."
B.J. bends back one of Hawkeye's fingers, and Hawkeye adds: "Thank you. The third time he denied ever being in line."
Season 3, Episode 61: Private Charles Lamb
Original Air Date: 12/31/74
Written by: Sid Dorfman
Directed by: Hy Averback
Frank confronts Radar in the Mess Tent, when he sees Radar's tray loaded down with a pile of vegetables. Radar talks his way out of it, and we follow him as we see who the vegetables are really for: a menagerie of animals, all kept in separate little hutches.
Wounded arrive, mostly consisting of soldiers from a Greek unit. After the doctors patch them up, their commander visits, and as a way to say thank you, he tells Henry they will put on a huge feast for everyone in the unit--the main course being lamb, which arrives in camp still in its original form--i.e., an adorable, snow-white little lamb.
Radar is horrified at this, and his love of animals overcomes his sense of duty. He doctors up an emergency medical leave form for "Private Charles Lamb", and has Henry sign it.
When the missing lamb is discovered, Henry starts to panic. He vents to Hawkeye and Trapper, and when he reveals that HQ has gotten involved, Radar tells him of his trickery, and that Pvt. Lamb is on his way to Radar's home in Iowa.
Henry is at first angry, but that quickly turns to confused frustration at having completely lost control of the situation. Hawkeye and Trapper, finding all of this very funny, offer to help out.
The party kicks off, and the booze is flowing so copiously that no one notices the lamb has been replaced by...a spam lamb!
The party rages all night, leaving most of the 4077th hung over in the Mess Tent. Trapper is playing the guitar, Radar is dancing aimlessly, and Henry is trying to desperately to stay conscious. He fails.
Fun Facts: While Radar doesn't officially become a vegetarian after this episode, this is one of the few times I can think of that a TV series (The Simpsons being the other, more obvious, example) addressed concerns someone might have about just how and where their meat comes from.
I became a vegetarian in 1998. I have to wonder if this episode wasn't in the back of my mind all that time, leading up to the moment I decided to stop eating animals.
Favorite Line: Henry, aghast at what's been going on, summarizes: "I've got command on my tail, a hospital full of Greeks waiting for a lamb who's sitting on a plane, on his way to Iowa to become Radar's little brother!"
Season 3, Episode 52: Iron Guts Kelly
Original Air Date: 10/1/74
Written by: Larry Gelbart & Sid Dorfman
Directed by: Don Weis
The 4077th is visited by yet another blustery general, Gen. Robert "Iron Guts" Kelly (the great James Gregory) and his assistant, Col. Wortman (Keene Curtis).
Gen. Kelly takes a real shine to Hot Lips, and during a late night drink at the Officers Club, he instructs Col. Wortman to get a tour of the 4077's "Motor pool set-up" from Frank--hopefully taking a couple of hours in the process. Wortman gets the idea, though it takes Henry a little longer to understand what's going on.
A few hours later, Hot Lips bursts into The Swamp, desperately needing help from Hawkeye and Trapper. After initially refusing, they go to her tent, where they find a deceased Gen. Kelly, who died in...mid-performance.
While trying to figure out what to do, Frank arrives. She is shocked to see Hawkeye and Trapper there, playing cards with Hot Lips. Unusual, to say the least.
After getting rid of Frank by pretending to have a headache, Hawkeye and Trapper sneak Gen. Kelly's body out of Margaret's tent, and into Col. Wortman's tent. They tell him what happened (sort of), and he demands that Gen. Kelly has to die "More meaningfully"--in the middle of a battle. He demands the doctors sign a death certificate to that effect, but they refuse.
He threatens them with a court-martial, but since they have the truth on their side, they're not scared. He finally convinces them to put the body in an ambulance, and he'll drive it to the front where there's some fighting.
After putting the body in an ambulance, it drives off, filled with "Business Girls" who some local MPs have arrested. Wortman asks where the ambulance is, and the doctors thought he took it.
Henry finally storms in, wondering why everyone seems to be up in the middle of the night. As Hawkeye and Trapper try to explain, they get a call from the front, saying that Gen. Kelly has been found dead in an ambulance filled with girls.
Wortman takes the phone, and tells the soldier on the other end to take the body to a sector where Wortman order an attack on--with rockets and jets--so Kelly will die "A full-scale, blazing, all-out, glorious, star-spangled-bannered death."
Henry, confused, asks Hawkeye and Trapper if he understands what's happening: is Col. Wortman trying to kill a man who's already dead? Hawkeye and Trapper answer yes, and head back to The Swamp.
Fun Facts: Having the same name as the General, I tried for years to get people to call me "Iron Guts", with no luck.
Favorite Line: Hawkeye and Trapper refuse to sign Col. Wortman's idea of a death certificate for Gen. Kelly, even after he hits them with a Zen saying about how Generals always die in battle.
Hawkeye: "There's another Zen saying: 'Only doctors with holes in heads fill out death certificates like gift vouchers.'"
Original Air Date: 3/11/73
Written by: Sid Dorfman
Directed by: Don Weis
During surgery, Frank yells at Nurse Ginger Bayliss, so badly she sheds a tear. After trying to console her afterwards, Hawkeye and Trapper decided to extract some revenge on him.
Thus begins a week of them torturing Frank, pulling one prank after the next. One morning, Frank wakes up with his hand wrapped in a cast, with a hook sticking out of it. This is the last straw for him, and he demands that Henry transfer him out.
Even though Frank tells them he's being transferred, Hawkeye and Trapper don't know when to quit--they stick a microphone inside Hot Lips' tent as Frank tells her he's leaving. Their "farewell scene" is subsequently broadcast over the camp's P.A., embarrassing Hot Lips so much she demands a transfer, too.
This enrages Henry, who holds Hawkeye and Trapper responsible for the 4077's loss of a "Fair but competent general surgeon" and a head nurse. Oops.
Once Hawkeye and Trapper are told they have to pull double duty until Frank and Hot Lips are replaced, they realize they went too far and contrive a way to keep Frank at the 4077th.
They get the idea indirectly from Radar, who has been out in the Korean hills panning for gold (Korea is one of the world's largest gold producers). Even though they think Radar's foolish, they drop hints about the gold to Frank while they pretend they think he's asleep. They supposedly come back with bags full of it (actually the worthless mineral Pyrite), and leave some of it out for Frank to find.
He does, and when he goes wandering into the hills, he finds some more. He is so overwhelmed at the idea of being fabulously rich that he runs back to Henry, asking for his transfer to be cancelled. Henry is mad at this, and says if he does that, then it will be the last time. Frank agrees.
He then tells Hot Lips, and takes out into the woods to show her the gold--and there's a lot of it: a lot--the ground, the rocks, the trees, the PA speaker, even the jeep Hawkeye and Trapper drive by in--are gold.
Margaret sits down a nearby rock, frustrated Frank fell for yet another trick.
Fun Facts: This episode is infamous as being considered the worst M*A*S*H ever. In The Complete Book of M*A*S*H, Larry Gelbart said this: "When I look back at some of those first-year shows, I'm embarrassed. The one about Major Fred C. Dobbs? The worst."
True, the episode is based on a fairly flimsy, not-war-related bit of research (namely, the amount of gold Korea produces), but its not that bad a show--its pretty funny in places, and the microphone prank is of course taken from the movie.
Its really the final scene--where everything's painted gold--that this episode breaks the Goofy Meter. Its so unreal, so sitcom-y, so absurd that it doesn't seem like the same show as all the others.
Favorite Line: When Hot Lips is telling Frank about the special dinner she has planned, she tells Frank she got the cook to make porkchops: "You know, just the way you like them--with extra fat." Bleah!
Original Air Date: 2/25/73
Written by: Sid Dorfman, McLean Stevenson
Directed by: Gene Reynolds
Radar is collecting bets on the upcoming Army-Navy Game, and Hawkeye, Trapper, and some nurses are in Henry's office as he tunes in the game.
The celebration is halted by the sound of incoming artillery--bombs begin to fall, and some debris hits Henry, knocking him silly. Frank insists he is in charge, but when he proves useless, Hawkeye essentially takes over.
Things get worse when an exploded bomb lands in the center of the camp. Hawkeye calls HQ, to ask them what to do. He gets a hold of a flunky who seems more interested in the game, but tells them to get all the markings off the bomb they can and report back.
Frank, still insisting he's in charge, is guilted into going out to check on the bomb, but faints before he can take one step out the door. Hawkeye does the job, and, with his stethoscope, can hear that the bomb is ticking away!
Later, Henry has recovered from his blow to the head, and re-assumes coomand. The Army says the bomb doesn't sound like any of theirs, try the Navy!
The Navy isn't much help, and saying it isn't one of theirs, either. They promise to look into it.
In the meantime, the camp passes the time--Hawkeye, Trapper, and Ugly John pay cards, Radar makes time with a nurse(!), and Frank and Hot Lips have a romantic moment alone.
The Navy finally calls back, and tells the 4077th that the bomb belongs to...the C.I.A.!
(Hawkeye wonders why the Navy can't get specific info about the bomb from the C.I.A., and Henry answers that's because "The C.I.A. won't tell anyone its business"--a great line)
Hawkeye and Trapper volunteer to go out and dismantle the bomb, with the help of the instructions they've gotten from the Navy. They follow the instructions, but when a poorly-sequenced part of the instructions caused them to snip a wire too soon, they run and duck for cover.
The bomb goes off, but all it shoots out are--paper? Yes, paper--leaflets telling the enemy to give up, they have no chance of winning, signed Douglas MacArthur. As Trapper explains, "It's a propaganda bomb!"
To make matters worse, Navy ends up beating Army, 42-36.
Fun Facts: This episode features a different arrangement of the show's theme, "Suicide is Painless." Its more jazzy and upbeat, like something you would've heard by a big swing band.
This episode's story is credited to McLean Stevenson, the only actor other than Alda to work on the series on the other side of the camera during the first few years of the show. And its a really good story--exciting and unusual for the show to that point.
Henry's wife is still named Mildred at this point (after he's been hit by debris, he's absently-mindedly calling her name). That would be changed shortly to Loraine, but the next 4077th colonel's wife would be named Mildred, too!
Favorite Line: This episode is filled with great lines, and it was hard to pick a favorite. But I always laugh when Father Mulcahy comes in to the office to listen to the game, rooting for Notre Dame.
Henry:(annoyed) "Father, Notre Dame isn't playing."
Mulcahy:(disappointed) "Oh, then what's all the excitement about?"
